


Partners

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Diamonds Droog, and you did not expect to lose the rest of your team to the Felt. And you really did not expect the world's worst detective to be the one to help you get them back.</p><p>Your name is Problem Sleuth, and you really wish your team would come through for you just this once. But instead, you're stuck with this gangster. This tall, handsome, badass, and <i>really hardboiled</i> gangster...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> On a prompt for the Kink Meme for a James Bond/Maxwell Smart team-up, with suave Droog and silly Sleuth. This may be long.

_Sleuth (i)_

Of all the times for Team Sleuth to fall through, this has got to be the kicker. You've been working on this case for days, and when you finally break through and figure out it was the Felt all along (really, you probably didn't need days for that, there's only three gangs in the city), Pickle Inspector is visiting his grandma and Ace Dick refuses to pick up. You bet he's in his office and just ignoring you, the asshole.

Well, so you're on your own for this one. It's not like you need those two to combat the Felt. All of the Felt. All fifteen-plus-Cueball of the Felt. You can do it alone.

Yep, you're going to die out there.

= = =

 _Droog (i)_

You can't go back to the hideout. They'll just be waiting. You keep your gun in hand and check through the window- no sign. The Felt aren't subtle; you'll know if they've found your backup hole. You slide in, bolt the door, check the back door, then strip out of your torn, bloodstained clothes.

It was so close. You could have got to him. But Clover, over in the corner- it's impossible to account for Clover. You don't like luck. This is why you hate Slick's plans. Too much relying on luck. Too many opportunities for the Felt to screw you over.

You bandage yourself up. Most of the shallow scrapes from diving for cover just need to be cleaned out; the slice under your arm needs stitches. You judge time. No, there'll be enough. You grit your teeth together and narrow your eyes and clean it out well ahead of time, leaving long watery red trails in your backup sink. You've only got so long before Trace or Fin tracks you back (or forward) here. But you're not soaking another shirt in your own blood- at least, not one you intend on wearing again.

This does not get easier. Being the only steady hand and clever mind in the Midnight Crew does not make you a doctor. But you're the doctor all the same. Just like you're the sniper, and a hundred other duties nobody else has the patience for. Your stitches are not easy, and they'll scar badly. You're in a hurry. But they'll hold, and nobody else could do this well under this amount of pressure.

You don't even pass out. When you finish, you take a long but shallow breath so as not to pull at them and wash a painkiller down with water. You can't afford more than one. You can't be any less on your game tonight, because you've got to get the others back from the Felt.

Just you, against the fifteen-plus-the brain of the Felt. You can't do this alone. But you don't have much choice.

You grit your teeth and pull a new tie out of the brawlsoleum, tossing the old one in the trash. You've only got so many left. You only have so much left. Oh, you're going to die out there.


	2. Chapter 2

_Sleuth (ii)_

Well, you're not dead yet. And you've made it all the way inside the mansion. Just another day's work for the city's most lonely Problem Sleuth. You look mournfully at your badass shadow, cast in green-on-green across the Felt's threshold. Goddammit, you need those two dumbasses for backup. Now nobody is going to see you crack this case wide open.

Boy, that's hilarious. You know damn well that it's going to be you that gets cracked open tonight. And nobody's going to see that, either.

And just then a big long shadow gets cast out beside yours. Alright, backup! Maybe Inspector made it back from his grandma's early oh shit.

= = =

 _Droog (ii)_

You find the city's biggest screw-up on the doorstep of the Felt's mansion, apparently giving some deep thought into how the doormat got there. You do not need this. You need Slick. And Boxcars. Even Deuce.

Hell, Crowbar might be more helpful wandering around in here than Problem Sleuth will. Of all the nights he had to show up, it had to be one vitally important to the continued survival of your entire gang. Godfuckingdammit, you mutter to yourself, quoting Slick in your frustration. Where Problem Sleuth goes, weird puzzle shit follows. You don't have time for this.

But you can't have him bumbling around unaccounted for. The two of you aren't buddy-buddy (and not just because there isn't a person in the world you are buddy-buddy with), and you can't count on him supporting you over the Felt.

No, best to keep ahold of him, and try to corral his absurdities rather than let them go free.

Besides, without Boxcars you're short one human shield.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sleuth (iii)_

Diamonds Droog is cramping your style. Your detective style.

The mobster is all action and no talk. He walks through these halls like he owns them, striding until he hears something and clings in one smooth motion to the wall.

No humour either. The guy wouldn't know a joke if it slugged him in the face, he's so serious.

And you're sick of his suit, all straight lines and perfect. And his face, with the strong high cheekbones and flint eyes and okay, his face is fine, but you figure if you keep looking at it you'll figure out something to dislike about it.

Honestly you're trying to feel like you're not completely outclassed here. You had no idea how much the rest of the Midnight Crew was holding this guy back. He is like a one-man scouting machine.

As soon as you think of it, he's slipped right against the wall again. You're moving, but you guess not quickly enough, because he grabs your shoulder and pulls you against the wall. Footsteps approach.

You wait.

You come up to his shoulder. You watch his gun. He's holding it close to his face, finger cocked over the trigger. He breathes silently onto it as the footsteps pause, then take another passage away. Droog lets out a silent breath, but doesn't move just yet.

He has shadows under his eyes, you note suddenly. And blood spattered on his jacket. He looks down at you, and there's one of those moments where you're sort of caught in shadowed grey eyes and blood spatters, and you think, _wow_.

Then he frowns, and pulls away, and strides silently down the green hallway, and you stand back and watch him move for a second. He's a panther in the green jungle of the Felt mansion, padding and cold and feral, and this time you think, _a panther? Where did that come from?_ and fall in behind him with your keys ready, watching his back.

Maybe you're going to need to study him a bit more. Just to figure out what else you dislike.

= = =

 _Droog (iii)_

Problem Sleuth keeps _looking at you weird_. You try to keep your mind on the task at hand. Not difficult; you're exceptionally used to tuning out bullshit to get the job done. You deal with a lot of it around the Crew.

He's actually less of a pain than you'd figured. Smarter than Deuce, certainly, quicker to respond than Boxcars, and more obedient than Slick. But then, weaker than Boxcars, dumber than Slick. He's still better than Deuce. He doesn't beat them out where they're best but he can't equal out to their failings, either. You've carted around worse partners.

Hm. Partners. You said it without a second thought. Perhaps he's keeping up better than you thought. You check over your shoulder surreptitiously. Problem Sleuth is overtly sneaking along behind you, pausing under an overhead light to tip his hat down over his eyes.

And he's _still_ less annoying than Deuce. What the hell.

Then a pair of footsteps. Not really steps. More like a couple of elephants. Shit shit shit. You grab Sleuth by the shoulder and push him into the alcove beside you, managing to slide in beside him, pull your coat around you, and wait. If it's Cans, you're fucked no matter what. But if it's Eggs and Biscuits, they might just be dumb enough not to notice.

You wait in suspense, looking down at Problem Sleuth's hat.

Hmm. You didn't realize how short he was. About Slick's height, actually. Pang of guilt.

No wait, that's not a pang of guilt. That's your stitches ripping. Your eyes go a bit fuzzy.

You're going to die out here. And only Problem Sleuth is going to see it.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sleuth (iv)_

You're pretty much closer to Diamonds Droog than you ever wanted to be, and now you're realizing with trepidation that you do sort of want to be after all. He smells like leather and blood, and it is unbelievably cool.

Actually, he smells more like blood now than he did a few minutes ago, and if he had the chance to shoot anybody since then, he's even better than you thought. When you look up at him, he's leaning one shoulder into the wall and has his eyes closed. He looks pained.

Oh wow. He is so _hardboiled_.

And also, you think, bleeding to death.

You consider. Droog opens his grey eyes a slit and glares at you through them. You realize you're smiling sort of dazedly, and get back on the job. A good Problem Sleuth can't get caught up in things like tense stealth situations in an enemy headquarters or extreme physical proximity to really cool gangsters. And you are the best Problem Sleuth in the city.

You pull a roll of bandages out of your inventory; you still haven't thrown out everything from your last weird puzzle case. Droog looks at you like you're an especially weird bug. He tosses a quick glance over his shoulder, then takes them, pulls his tie aside, and starts undoing his shirt.

You do not for a moment wish for somewhere else to look, which is good, because you don't have one. If you did, you probably wouldn't stop looking at his chest anyhow.

God that's a lot of scars. This guy is more hardboiled than you are.

= = =

Droog (iv)

Oh god you're in pain. You wouldn't have bothered stitching yourself up if you'd known you were going to get caught up in some stupid delusional thing with the city's stupidest detective. Goddammit. You would have just laid down in your backup hideout and waited to die.

But you're here with Problem Sleuth pressed up against the wall, and you're bleeding through another shirt, and Eggs and Biscuits are right behind you right now, so why the fuck do you keep dwelling on the first part of that sentence?

He looks concerned. And also sort of puppy-dog-ish. Distressed. Goddammit he needs to stop looking at you like that. Slick would just tell you to stop bleeding on his shoes and to go pass out in the corner if you weren't going to help. You could really use that right now. Or Boxcars to just throw you over his shoulder and carry you back home. At least Sleuth continues to outpace Deuce.

He pulls a roll of bandages out of nowhere, with a stupid sort of nervous smile, and presses them into your hand. The footsteps are moving on. They're almost gone. You loosen your tie and start unbuttoning your shirt. You need to slap another couple layers on here before the blood reaches your coat.

You don't know if you could stand it if your coat got ruined.

You get it open, toss a few layers of soaked bandage on the floor, and start winding Sleuth's bandages around you. Your coat keeps getting in the way, until you find the bandages pulled from your hand, and Problem Sleuth starting to wind them around you instead.

He's a bit shaky.

But then, so are you.


	5. Chapter 5

_Sleuth (v)_

So you slap a whole roll of bandages around your gangster's chest ('your gangster', oh boy why did you say that) and the two of you manage to stumble out of the alcove like a pair of teenagers caught in a classroom. Droog fixes his shirt back up and pulls his awesome blood-spattered coat back into place, and the two of you are off into the heart of Felt Manor.

To free a bunch of rotten mobsters from a bunch of other rotten mobsters. By walking through their home. When they can track you through time and some of them are like eight feet tall. You're actually more worried about your internal monologue, though.

That is, until the two of you walk right into Die and Crowbar, apparently just out for a walk. Why was Six afraid of Seven? You guess because he's an angry son of a bitch who likes beating people to death with his namesake. If you weren't so hardboiled, you'd be scared too.

= = =

 _Droog (v)_

Oh good. This is just what you needed.

Actually, it kind of was. You'd swear the only reason you didn't get the drop on them was your throbbing side. But you'd be lying. The real reason is that goddamn fucking Problem Sleuth bandaged you up and then awkwardly smiled at you, and you can still sort of feel his hands fumbling around your chest and stomach. It takes the form of a low twisting inside you, something turning over in its sleep, and if it weren't for the pain you'd be smiling lazily at him and challenging him to something to see him keep botching it up and flushing like he just did.

And you don't like that idea at all, or rather, you really like that idea, and are infuriated by how stupid your timing was. You also have choice things to say about the target of all this slow-building interest.

Because it's _Problem Sleuth_.

And... it's _Problem Sleuth_.

In the middle of this you pretty much trip over Die and everybody in both parties reacts in shock. Die checks his doll, pulls a pin, and vanishes. Crowbar freaks out briefly and whips out the bar, Problem Sleuth ducks behind a freaky green statue, keys out, and you do the least _you_ thing you've ever done and freak the fuck out, because your life is going to shit and Crowbar's the first person you've come across that you can legitimately blame for it.

Slick is gone. Boxcars is gone. Deuce is gone. You hate them whenever you work beside them but now that they're gone they are your best fucking friends, and no time-travelling green second-rate gang is going to take them from you. And two minutes ago, you almost pushed Problem Sleuth into the wall and crushed your lips against his because he kept trying to fix you up just a bit more and pretending to be all casual and noir about it and you could see how his breath came roughly and his hands shook-

And then Problem Sleuth is pulling you off Crowbar's mangled body and you don't really remember the last couple of minutes. You've got a gun in one hand, covered in blood, and the crowbar in the other, also covered in blood, and your coat is wet and sticky too.

You look up at Problem Sleuth in a bit of shock; maybe it's actual medical shock. You're not sure how the bandages are holding up. Problem Sleuth looks back at you in what is probably alarm and worry, and it is the most unfamiliar expression to you that you just stare at him dumbly for a minute without moving at all.


	6. Chapter 6

_Sleuth (vi)_

Okay, that was at least a lot less of a firefight than you're used to in these parts. As far as you can tell, the Felt were just as surprised to see you as you were them, but Crowbar had to get a bigger surprise than that when Droog leapt him like some sort of berserker. Does the guy think he's Ace Dick? You never imagined he'd hold up so well in a fist fight. He's too skinny.

But then, Crowbar wasn't built either, just a bit broader in the shoulder and chest than Droog. So maybe the match wasn't so stacked after all. All the same, seeing cautious Droog go for the throat was pretty crazy. It was like this slow-motion crack-martial-artist planned-out manoeuvre and you can barely believe you just saw it. There was like this crack to the face with the butt of Droog's pistol, then a turn (with his coat flying out and everything) and an elbow to the ribs. Somehow he tripped Crowbar with another awesome coat flourish and you think splintered his knee, and then about a second later he got the crowbar wrestled away and just started going to town.

And you stood here and watched it, because it was pretty much simultaneously the most frightening and coolest thing you've ever seen, and you fought the ascended demon version of your landlord on an airship with a pair of Ace Dick clones and like fifteen Pickle Inspectors.

So you would judge yourself to be the expert.

And then after a moment of silent appreciatory oohing in your head, you realized Droog was not stopping any time soon, muttering fanatically to himself as he pummelled what was swiftly becoming the liquified remains of Number Seven of the Felt.

You don't feel too bad about that. It was probably excrutiatingly painful, but it's not like Crowbar from the next timeline over will even notice. You never worry about killing the Felt (except for Snowman). They're back next week like the worst soap opera characters.

And though part of you flinches at the goop Droog's splattered all over himself, when he looks up at you with a wild, intent look on his face and pants sharply through his teeth as he catches his breath, something inside you takes off like a whole flight of monarch butterflies.

He tosses the crowbar back in a gesture of supremely casual badassery, and through the fluttering wings beating at your heart, all you can think is, _I can't wait to tell the guys about this_.

= = =

 _Droog (vi)_

You throw the crowbar away. The insane focus and frenzy that took you over is fading, and with it, the last of your adrenaline. You've only got so much left.

That's when you look over to Problem Sleuth, silently following behind you as you leave red footprints down the green hall. He is looking at you, concerned and... what? Anxious. Nervous. Breathing heavy, fingers twitchy. Worried about you. And, clear even through your fog of pain, wanting you.

Goddammit, you can't resist this forever. If you'd known you'd end up falling for the dorkiest kid in town, you'd have just stepped out in front of Eggs and Biscuits and let them destroy you in a flurry like a couple hundred elephants stampeding. Well, no stopping it now. That lazy something inside you keeps turning over and over, restless in its sleep like it's about to wake.

You wake it up.

You achieve this by grabbing Problem Sleuth by the wrist (keys in hand) and pushing him into the wall, then pressing your entire long body up against his. You holster your pistol in one fluid motion and have your hand, empty, curl beneath his jaw and incline his face up to yours.

Problem Sleuth gets this look of fearful admiration on his face and he's shaking a bit, and to be fair, you did just murder a man with nothing but anger and his own blunt instrument and you're still covered in bits of squishy green and red, so you wouldn't blame him if he backed off.

But he doesn't. He just takes in breath after trembling breath and fixes big green eyes on yours and waits and looks at you with his lips parted.

You are a man who knows what you want. So when you thought _he needs to be gasping for air right now_ , you knew it was only a matter of time. Why wait? You cut it short, slide your hand around to the back of his head, curl your gloved fingers into it. Then you pull him up to meet you just as you duck your head to catch him halfway, and your lips are grasping at his like you've plunged into ice water and he's the only source of air.

In a sense, you're not exaggerating at all.


	7. Chapter 7

_Sleuth (vii)_

 _Oh god oh god oh god oh god what's happening this is amazing-_

= = =

 _Droog (vii)_

Problem Sleuth is moaning like a teenager and you feel unbelievably smug about it. And, sort of, possessive. It's rewarding.

His fingers fumble against your chest and spastically tighten in your shirt and you don't even mind. This sort of thing is one of the few places you'll accept someone messing around with your suit. And anyhow, this one was dying quicker than you are, so if Problem Sleuth gets it creased you guess you can deal with it for now.

You move on to his throat, and if anybody's done this to him before, you're Lord English. His hips sort of buck and he gives you this wide incredulous look like it's the best thing ever, and you just give him your usual thin smile (perhaps a little less professional than usual; you're still in a lot of pain) and bite his neck gently.

His moans, perhaps predictably, draw the Felt.


	8. Chapter 8

_Sleuth (viii)_

You manage to pull yourself out of the vortex of extreme amazingness that is Droog kissing you. You can barely think that sentence straight. But he pulls his head up like a doberman on guard and slaps your key ring into your hand, and now that you think of it, you guess you can hear somebody coming.

Pretty clearly, now that every tiny detail of the world is sticking out to you like the feeling of Droog's mouth down your neck and there goes that detail. It can last as long as you don't think too deeply about what just happened. Your EROTICALIPERS (a scale you didn't even know you possessed until right now) measure that you're holding off complete moaning uselessness by about an ADJACENTIMETRE. That is apparently not much.

You look around, trying to catch your bearings. Oh hey, what's left of Crowbar is still here. That gives you about a THINCH more on your gauge and you manage to ground yourself.

Before you can do anything else, though, Droog grabs your wrist and pulls, taking off running down the hall, deeper into the mansion. You stumble after him, legs having to remember how to move again.

= = =

 _Droog (viii)_

You are actually getting a thrill of adrenaline from all this, in a new way that you haven't felt since you first got suited up and picked up a tommy gun. It's like your first heist all over again, the joy and heady confidence that you can point a gun at someone and they will _do what you tell them_.

Ahead, there's a flash of yellow, far in the distance. Immediately, as you run, you stick your arm out straight from your side, locking your elbow and clenching your fist. Itchy takes it in the throat and goes down, and Problem Sleuth gives you this appreciative sound like it was just the coolest, and appropriately, you feel like you _are_.

That is, until you break down the doors leading to the Felt's secondary vault and see what's covering it.

Bands of steel, strapped around the door like they'll crush it, a mix of weird stripes and colours decorating them, and a single keyhole in each one. There's about a dozen of them, and you don't even have the key for the door, let alone a way to get through this.

You stop short, your adrenaline vanishing. There are footsteps behind, again, rushing towards you, and for the first time since you grabbed Problem Sleuth, you remember that you're going to die here.


	9. Chapter 9

_Sleuth (ix)_

Oh these friggin' amateurs. This is a blatant plagiarism of Kingpin's shtick. Pickle Inspector could solve this in his sleep wearing a blindfold and tied to a chair. _Ace Dick_ could solve this puzzle. You can't insult it more than that; Dick is the stupidest person you know.

Droog is staring at it. He looks like he's running out of energy. Oh right, his side, whoops, you kind of forgot about it in all of the running and kissing and amazing-

No, none of that. Business first. What kind of Problem Sleuth are you anyhow, if you can't deal with a gent fatal, a gang (down two) of incompetent mobsters, and a vault covered in the most boring puzzle shit you've ever seen.

Fifteen locks, fifteen members of the Felt, this is so unimaginative it's almost painful. This is the weird puzzle shit version of the little brass deadbolt that comes on every door. It's not going to stop anybody who's ever broken a door down. There's no alcove requiring your own skull to open it. There's no second torch to light. There's not even any dropping blocks you have to rearrange into a picture of Lord English's face.

This is child's play.

= = =

 _Droog (ix)_

And Problem Sleuth is doing something to those locks. You take the bust-in door and set up a makeshift barricade. You plant yourself behind it and settle down, watching the hall and, out of the corner of your eye, the vault.

You don't see the Felt yet, but you know they're coming. You reach inside your shirt to touch your bandages. They're damp, and now that you're not running on adrenaline alone, you're starting to get light-headed.

There is a whirring sound behind you and a band of white and red steel separates and retreats into the walls around the vault. You look back to see Problem Sleuth, looking just as distressed and absent-minded as ever, but somehow in his element. He does something to another band, reaching in carefully past all the rest, and it too parts and separates, white and green banded steel sliding away.

Then orange and white, then purple and white, and oh, stupid, he's doing stripes first, counting down from fifteen with the Felt's individual colours, huh.

 _That seems like a stupid lock,_ you think, and then somebody throws Crowbar's crowbar down the hallway at your head and you don't think anything else for the time being.


	10. Chapter 10

_Sleuth (x)_

Okay, so Diamonds Droog is more heavily-built than you believed. You know this because after owning the wussiest puzzle in history and getting the vault open, you ran through a hail of Felt fire to drag him into the vault with you. He leaves a thin trail of blood behind him and it terrifies you through the heart-stopping thud of adrenaline that comes from running straight into a hail of bullets to save your... gangster. Your gangster.

What else would you call him?

The vault door swings shut with the bizarre ease of really heavy objects, and you can hear all the straps swing into position again. You crouch over Droog in fear. His face is grey.

That's when you hear it.

"Oh fucking great," comes a voice like an entire Ginsu steak knife set thrown down a set of stairs. It's Spades Slick. Actually, it's the whole rest of the Midnight Crew. They're tied to chairs in the middle of the vault, backs to a high pedestal. Boxcars is sitting patiently, Deuce staring curiously and intently at you, both gagged but calm. Slick seems to have chewed through his gag with his mouth full of angry, and is using his newfound oral freedom to harangue you.

You ignore him, as you always do, and explore the room instead. There's a lever on the wall and... actually not much else. It's a vault full of disappointment. No wonder the Felt only put a basic lock on this thing; they were probably _hoping_ somebody would come spring Spades Slick so nobody would have to go retie his gag. That is a thankless job if you ever heard of one.

You investigate the pedestal. It's not like Droog's dying or anything. Oh hey, there's your ridiculous PLOT MACGUFFIN, case closed. You shove it in your inventory and run back to Droog. You need to stop his bleeding and get him out of here. You pull his tie aside and rip his shirt open.

Oh wow. That is a lot of blood.

And also, oh wow.

==>

Right, the bleeding. You pull the NEEDLE & THREAD out of your inventory. God if that hadn't been the most boring quest you've ever done. No more cases for old ladies and their multiple cats.

You get your coat off and start working. Besides put one in your inventory, this is the first thing you've ever done with a needle. It is insanely hard, slippery bloody ripped flesh and a tiny piece of steel, and these are the ugliest stitches you've ever seen. And being the city's top Problem Sleuth means you've required your share of fix-ups yourself.  
When you're done, you tie his shirt around the wound and stand up. You flip the lever and feel the vault start to move- up. Where? You don't know. But levers are made to be flipped, and this vault is made to be moved. You don't think it'll be worse than here.

As an afterthought, you free the Midnight Crew.

= = =

 _Droog (x)_

You start to come to slowly. You don't throw up; that's just not your style. Of course, it's not your style to wear your shirt tied around your waist, either, but you'll make do with some effort.

There's someone over you. You can tell that much in the bleary haze. You try to tell him to leave the vault alone, to come back. It doesn't matter, just leave it, leave it, leave them. You get most of that out alright, but some of it gets caught and confused.

He says something. You tell him you don't want to die here. But you're glad he's the one to see it. Your vision clears up a bit.

Slick says he's touched, and he'll be more so if you get off the fucking floor and help him get off the roof. You give him your usual scornful look, which is probably a bit contorted through all the pain and blood and wobbling vision, but it's the thought that counts. He stalks off, muttering, and Problem Sleuth steps into your field of view to replace him.

All that stuff was meant for him. You hope he heard it, because you're not going to repeat it.

He just sort of crouches there and gives you a grim, distressed look in his bloodstained coat. He holds his hat in his hands and his hair is wild with some blood in it, probably yours, and his tie is askew. Problem Sleuth pulls out a cigarette, and hands you one too, lighting it in your shaking hands. He looks like a mess, and he also looks unbelievably cool.

When you're finally seeing straight, he helps you stand, edging under your good side to pull your arm over his shoulder. You're on the roof of Felt Manor. The multicoloured wasteland stretches around you and you can see Midnight City in the distance.

In a moment, you'll have to deal with that. With getting off the roof, and past the Felt. But for now, except for your allies, the coast is clear. In a moment, Slick is going to freak out and you'll never hear the end of it. But for now, he's pacing silently at the edge, mouth set in his usual snarl. In a moment, you might pass out again, and somebody had better catch you because there's no way you're going to fall off that roof. But for now, you've got just enough balance to clasp your fingers behind Sleuth's hair and pull him towards you.

Somewhere outside your kiss, you can hear Slick beginning his freakout. A door nearby busts open. Dizziness begins washing through your stomach. But for about a second you think, _we are going to live forever_.


End file.
